Cey Adams | Departure: 40 Years of Art and Design
LOVE Denim
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Trusted Brands - Hot Wheels
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"In My Lifetime (A Cey Adams Megamix)" By DJ 7L
[LISTEN!](https://www.mixcloud.com/DJ7L/dj-7l-in-my-lifetime-a-cey-adams-megamix/)
Our Revolution: Civil Rights Memories, 2019
Black Panel #3, 2019 Mixed media collage on panel 37 × 33 inchesOrange Panel, 2019 Mixed media collage on panel 37 × 33 inchesRed Panel, 2019 Mixed media collage on panel 37 × 33 inchesSilver Panel, 2019 Mixed media collage on panel 37 × 33 inchesYellow Panel, 2019 Mixed media collage on panel 37 × 33 inchesBlack Panel #2, 2019 Mixed media collage on panel 37 × 33 inchesCourtesy of the Artist
Trusted Brands - KFC
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LOVE (Wildflower), 2022
[????Available for pre-order at West Chelsea Contemporary.](https://wccgiftshop.com/products/love-wildflowers)Gary Lichtenstein Editions 34 color silkscreen on archival 320 gram Coventry Rag Paper 45 x 31 inches Edition size: 75 + 10AP & 10PPs and 10 Publisher's Proofs
DMX | Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of my Blood
Vibe: Cey Adams, Creative Director: "I was concerned about the similarities between DMX and Tupac with his shirt off, so photographer Jonathan Mannion and I thought we should do something really literal: a blood bath. But because DMX was such a loose cannon, we were afraid to ask whether he wanted to do it. If you present an artist with an idea, especially something that could be perceived as sacrilegious, they could just turn on you - and the record company is not going to protect you. But in the end, he was excited about the idea. Jonathan mixed up this concoction of Kool-Aid, Jell-O, sugar, and food dye to make the blood. I assumed the cover would be really controversial and we wouldn't be able to rack it in Wal-Mart, but I don't remember it being that big of a deal. Anytime you're working with DMX, it's memorable. You have to earn his trust, and you have to convince the whole posse it's cool. It's ridiculous to have to convince the guys sitting around eating craft services that the cover is a great idea, but that's the way it works in hip-hop." VIBE Magazine, 2005
Beastie Boys | hello nasty
Hello Nasty is the fifth studio album by the Beastie Boys, released on July 14, 1998 by Grand Royal/Capitol Records. The album art was designed by Bill McMullen with art direction by Cey Adams, co-founder of design studio The Drawing Board (1986–1999).From Min Chen's article for Proxy Music:The album's sleeve art marked a dimensional shift from the street-dwelling images of 1989's Paul's Boutique and 1992's Check Your Head, embracing instead a whole other astro plane. Cover designer Bill McMullen (who, while working at Def Jam Records in the mid '90s, first met the Beastie Boys at a basketball game) revealed in 2013 that he'd actually planned to illustrate an underwater base, a "weird, bottom-of-the-sea type thing." Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz, however, nudged him onto the opposite path. Recalled McMullen, "He was like, 'Yeah, it's cool, like, undersea stuff. But you know what's really cool is a space station.'"The space theme extends to the visual rendition of the band name and album title. They feature original lettering inspired by Countdown, a futuristic (or, by 1998, retro-futuristic) typeface desiged by Colin Brignall for Letraset in 1965.Visual comparison of the original lettering (top) and a resetting in the Countdown font, using URW's digital version (bottom). All letterforms have been adjusted to various degrees. The differences are most striking in a and the descenderless y, where all the thicks were moved to the left. Likewise, the ascenders in b and hwere thinned to match the left part of the bowls. The waist of a e s was lowered, and thin top horizontals thickened. Lastly, the dot on i was omitted.
LL Cool J | Mama Said Knock You Out
Notable about the cover is its lettering, which was hand-written by Adams; he lobbied to issue the album cover without any text on the cover, but it was deemed too experimental at the time. And unlike most album covers, the now-iconic image of a chiseled LL Cool J was never second-guessed. LL apparently walked in with photos from a recent fashion shoot, placed them on the desk, and it was a done deal. If there's one quibble that Adams has with the cover, it's that a meddling marketing executive took it upon herself to change the lettering from white to red.Minor issues notwithstanding, Adams regards the minimalist example as one of his favorite covers, while also saying it signifies a pivotal moment in LL Cool J's career: when the rapper retired the youthful image of his first three albums and stepped out into the spotlight as both a grown man and a force to be reckoned with in the rap community.[By B.G. Henne, 2015](https://www.avclub.com/read-this-the-story-behind-the-mama-said-knock-you-out-1798283619)
Cey Adams x Hot Wheels "LOVE" 70's diecast van
[????BUY NOW!](https://creations.mattel.com/products/hot-wheels-cey-adams-love-70s-van-hny48) Mattel Creations is proud to partner with Cey Adams to celebrate his passion for Hot Wheels and to showcase a one-of-a-kind collaboration during his exhibition. Adam reimagined the classic Hot Wheels logo by utilizing printed materials from Mattel's archives from the 60s and 70s to create a 5-foot 3-D sculpture.To celebrate the retrospective, Mattel Creations is debuting a limited edition Cey Adams x Hot Wheels "LOVE" 70's diecast van, inspired by Adams' iconic 'LOVE' murals.
PUBLIC ENEMY: Fear of A Black Planet
Chuck D of Public Enemy and Cey Adams, a visual artist, graphic designer, author, and founding creative director of Def Jam Recordings, have teamed up for the latest installment of the animated Behind The Cover series.This new episode dives into the artwork behind Public Enemy's third studio album, the seminal 1990 release, Fear of a Black Planet. The deep-dive is part of UMe/Urban Legends' Hip-Hop History month campaign.Says Chuck, regarding the album, "When we began to start sketching out the ideas for Fear of a Black Planet, that whole process was thinking about a world that was waiting for us to repeat It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back. People expected that Fear of a Black Planet would follow that up. In baseball speak, if It Takes A Nation was a Nolan Ryan, a hundred-mile fastball, the whole key in Fear of a Black Planet was throwing a hanging curve, to catch everybody off tempo.Cey Adams also reminisced on the process of creating the cover, saying, "Chuck D was always very hands-on with his artwork. So he would come in most of the time off hours, because I think that's when parking was a little bit easier to find on the street. He Knew exactly what he wanted and it was Steve and I's job to figure out how to execute it. We wanted this sort of Star Wars type effect." Suffice it to say, they nailed the aesthetic they were going for.[udiscovermusic on November 26, 2021 By Will Schube](https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/chuck-d-cey-adams-fear-of-a-black-planet-behind-the-cover/)
